Specialized Ministries

In our province friars engage in a variety of ministries.  Campus ministries, parishes, our graduate school or mission in Mexicali, and internal ministries that we are committed to staffing on an on-going, long-term basis.  Specialized ministries are different in nature.  In our on-going ministerial commitments the province is making the commitment, but in specialized ministries only the individual friar(s) is making the commitment while the province administration, approving of the specialized ministry, releases the friar to engage in that ministry.  This is important, because not only is the friar able to go and do wonderful ministries elsewhere, but they have the support of the province in doing so.

When a friar leaves a specialized ministry, the province has no commitment to re-staff it.  In fact, some of the very best specialized ministries are where a friar sees a great need, begins a ministry, prepares, organizes and builds up the infrastructure to this new ministry for the express purpose of turning it over to someone else when they depart.  Not all specialized ministries are intended to continue on indefinitely.  Sometimes very valuable specialized ministries address a need that will come and go, and the friar will return to a regular province commitment or launch themselves in a new direction with a different specialized ministry.

Specialized ministries are beginning and ending on a perpetual basis.  It is too difficult to keep a list updated on this website, but here are some examples of specialized ministries of our recent past:

Education

Dominican professors are often asked to teach in many places beyond our own graduate school, the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.

• University of Fribourg, Switzerland
• Angelicum, Rome, Italy
• Providence College, RISt
• Mary's College, Moraga, CA
• Université de Fribourg, Switzerland

Ministries of the Order and Church

• Monastery of the Angels, Hollywood, CA
  Corpus Christi Monastery, Menlo Park, CA
  Chaplains to our Dominican nuns of the Western United States
• Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem, Israel
  Biblical School and Research Center, professors and researchers of biblical texts
  www.ebaf.edu
• St. Francis Center for Priestly Formation, San Diego, CA
• Kenya Dominican Mission, Kenya, Africa
• Missionary helping the Archdiocese of Vilnius, Lithuania
  Family Center consultant and missionary

Variety

• DominICON, artistry of traditional icons
• St. Therese Center, Las Vegas, NV, case manager for a HIV-AIDS relief ministry
  www.sainttheresecenter.org
• Nathan Adelson Hospice, Las Vegas, NV, spiritual care for the dying
  www.nah.org
• Catholic Answers, El Cajon, CA, Chaplain and apologist for staff and radio program
  www.catholic.com
• Mud Puddle Films, a ministry of Fr. Dominic DeLay
  www.mudpuddlefilms.com
• Black and White Concert, bringing black and white Americans through the centuries using music
  blackandwhiteop.org
• United States Military (Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines)
  Chaplains serving in peace time, WWII, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, domestically, and more

Be sure to see our pages for campus ministries, parish ministries, and other ministries.  The above specialized ministries are only a small example of the countless specialized ministries we have done over the years, and only a small part of the on-going ministry of the friars at-large.